Chapter 322: The Midnight Assault

After discovering this, Baichuan had a sudden inspiration and, while the other was observing, silently taught them a set of claw/blade techniques that allowed the human body to make highly efficient use of its own energy.

When you get down to it, this set of blade techniques wasn't anything profound — it was simply a method Baichuan had devised, based on the structure of the human body, that was perfectly suited to letting a person wield a blade with high efficiency,

and it incorporated a high degree of utilization of biological energy, so that the body's excess energy was no longer wasted but instead nourished and strengthened the body itself.

Normally, a great deal of the energy produced from the food a person eats actually leaks out and goes to waste through pores and the like — which is also why, in peacetime, so many people grow fat from nutritional excess.

Baichuan's technique exploited a certain instinctive reflex of the human body — much like how tapping the knee causes it to kick involuntarily; that belongs to neural stimulation regulation,

and as for why deep breathing relieves the body's state of tension, it is because when a person is tense they breathe rapidly and shallowly, the lung capacity is not utilized efficiently, and the oxygen in the air cannot fully exchange with the carbon dioxide in the blood,

whereas deep breathing changes that state of rapid, shallow breathing, slowing the breath down and shifting it into a deep breath that makes full use of the lung capacity, allowing the oxygen in the lungs and the carbon dioxide in the blood to undergo a thorough, high-efficiency exchange — a chain reaction that results from this.

His technique relies on these reactions: as long as certain movements are performed completely, the body will spontaneously activate itself during the course of the training, and depending on how intense or how fast the movement is, it will spontaneously adjust the body's breathing rate,

and once a certain threshold is reached, the body will, because of that breathing rate, be subjected to a kind of spontaneous stimulus — like how a lack of oxygen makes one dizzy — a whole-body stress response akin to shivering that closes off most of the pores, retaining the excess energy that would otherwise have been expelled through them, so that it nourishes the body's muscles and flesh and builds up one's physical strength.

This is an extremely efficient method of energy utilization, but unfortunately it's of little use to Baichuan, because he can already make highly efficient use of the energy within his body and convert it into the energy for his self-created Gold Finger.

Besides, his mutated right claw is itself a massive energy drain, leaving him with no surplus energy to spare.

Of course, only Baichuan would think of it as nothing more than a few simple techniques; for Zhou Yun, who until recently had been nothing but an ordinary person, this set of techniques was a treasure — he not only learned it himself but also passed it on to his younger sister.

Under Baichuan's silent tutelage, the two siblings, even in just five days, and with ample food to support them, had seen a great increase in their physical fitness — their strength had grown considerably as well.

After all, this technique came from an Earth Immortal whose power was enough to reign as king and tyrant over an entire planet!

And one who was moreover extremely familiar with the various structures of biological flesh and blood.

In just five days, the change for ordinary people was nothing short of a complete rebirth.

At this point, even Zhou Xiaoxiao could grip a tachi and, by ambush, slice off the head of an unconscious "shadow figure," while Zhou Yun could hold his Tang blade and, without changing expression, fight back and forth among the unconscious "shadow figures" — as long as there were fewer than three of them, he could finish them off all by himself.

Don't underestimate this — although these "shadow figures" had no consciousness, in every other respect they were no inferior to a normal adult male, and in terms of strength, with the limits imposed by the brain removed, they were even greater.

Of course, what came with this was that the food, which had previously been fairly plentiful, began to dwindle rapidly — after all, in a residential building, especially one populated mainly by young people, and in a situation where one couldn't light fires or use electricity, no matter how much food there was, it couldn't amount to all that much.

……

This day, the fifth floor.

Having finally cleared this floor during the day, the Zhou siblings were now hugging their blades and sleeping soundly.

"Aaaahhh!!!"

"Splat—!!"

Suddenly, an extremely harrowing scream fell from above toward the ground, and a moment later, a muffled thud of something hitting the floor rang out.

Zhou Yun and his sister, who had been sleeping soundly, instantly opened their eyes — bright and alert, without a trace of the grogginess of a normally awakened person.

Zhou Yun did a kip-up, Tang blade already in hand, and went straight to the window; glancing at Mao Mao, who had long since been standing there, he wasn't particularly surprised, and instead looked down, and through the increasingly damaged street lamp made out the situation below —

it was a blood-soaked, mangled human-shaped thing, almost reduced to a lump of meat paste.

Yet this sight caused Zhou Yun's pupils to contract, because he recognized the clothing on that lump!

It was Wang Bo's!

But why had he fallen from the rooftop?

What on earth had happened on the upper floors of this building?

Yet, while Zhou Yun was puzzling over it, Baichuan's heart was turning over uneasily within.

Things seemed to be taking a bad turn.

During these five days, Baichuan, who had almost stopped clearing the lower floors, had finally had the time to head up to the upper floors and check on the situation with that "monster."

This allowed him to discover that, for some unknown reason, the monster would leave that room filled with yellow-red pus every single night and search through the empty floors for figures like Wang Bo.

Although Baichuan didn't know why Wang Bo attracted the "monster," he knew that Wang Bo being alive was the greatest help to him,

because Wang Bo was currently able to keep the "monster" occupied and prevent it from coming down — so over these past few days he had even brought small amounts of food and left them in the room where Wang Bo rested during the day, for fear that he would starve and lose the stamina to keep running.

One could say he had exploited the other's status as a tool to the absolute limit.

But now, this wonderfully useful tool of a person was dead!

Baichuan had already checked all the upper floors; the others had long since died — it seemed they had perished before Wang Bo and his group even made it up there, and their deaths had been extremely gruesome; and now, the only living people on the upper floors were also gone.

With no living people left above, what that "monster" would do next was obvious without thinking……

Hopefully we can hold out through tonight.

Tomorrow we absolutely must leave this building at once — no more delays!

Gazing out at the still pitch-black night, Baichuan silently resolved.

Although he already knew there were no living people left above, Baichuan wasn't about to wake the siblings and have them flee through the night right now.

For humans who cannot see in the dark, moving about in pitch blackness is an extremely dangerous thing; without special training, the fighting ability they have during the day drops by at least seventy or eighty percent at night.

If it then turned out that the "monster" never came, but their own people lost their footing, that would be laughable.

Startled awake, the two people and one cat in the room soon hurried back to sleep again.

Tick-tock — tick-tock —

Late at night, the clock moved steadily forward through the silent darkness with a barely perceptible sound, giving one a sense of stillness.

"Tap tap tap……"

No one knew how much time had passed when, suddenly, a crisp sound of footsteps rang out in the silent floor, and the sound seemed to be drawing closer and closer.

"Tap tap tap……"

Closer, ever closer!

Within the crisp footsteps, the sound of flesh sticking to the floor, along with faint splashing sounds like treading through water, began to appear.

At that very moment, in the darkness.

A pair of golden feline eyes slowly opened, glinting with an eerie, faint light in the dark.

It seems that tonight, after all, is not going to be a good night for sleep.

Baichuan straightened up, stretched his body a little, went over to Zhou Yun's side, and extended a cat paw, using the soft, fleshy pad unique to cats to pat his face a few times.

"Mm—?"

In the darkness, Zhou Yun felt the light patting sounds and woke once again.

Still half-dazed, he saw Mao Mao right before his eyes, and the approaching footsteps not far outside the door, and instantly sobered up, instinctively gripping the weapon beside him as he sat up.

After gently waking his sister Zhou Xiaoxiao, Zhou Yun, who was about to slip over to the door to launch an ambush, paused and lowered his head to look at his feet—his trouser leg was being tugged by a cat's paw.

Seeing him look over, Mao Mao shook his head in a remarkably human way.

In just an instant, Zhou Yun's heart grew heavy.

He knew full well how strong Mao Mao was.

Even before, when they had encountered special "shadow figures" on the floor, Mao Mao had never retreated, nor had he ever blocked Zhou Yun from retreating—instead he had simply watched from the side, and whenever danger appeared he would step in with a paw.

But now, he was tugging his trouser leg and shaking his head.

Outside was likely a monster no human could face!

In a single instant, with a single action, a hundred thoughts churned through Zhou Yun's mind.

Seeing the young man stop, Baichuan likewise loosened his claws in good time, understanding that the other had grasped the situation; then he lightly leapt to the window and glanced back.

Zhou Xiaoxiao reacted at once. Barefoot, she soundlessly moved toward the backpack beside her—inside was a thick rope they had found earlier. Her fingers rested on the zipper as she carefully pulled it open,

"Zzz…"

A faint, barely audible sound rose in the silent darkness of night.

At the same time, Zhou Yun hurriedly looked around and fixed his eyes on an extremely heavy wooden bed in the corner, trying to drag it near the window to serve as an anchor and a buffer for tying off.

"Click."

"Drip—"

The footsteps outside the door stopped, and an indescribably strange fragrance faintly drifted in from beyond.

Under the solar light bulb in the corridor that flickered on and off, a massive shadow slowly oozed in through the crack of the door. Beneath the clear sound of dripping, yellowish-red pus that looked sickeningly nauseating seeped in, carrying with it a heart-palpitating sensation, as though something invisible had seized the heart.

Seeing this, Zhou Xiaoxiao, who had been checking outside from time to time, paused, and her little face instantly turned deathly pale.

If it weren't for the fact that in recent days her own strength had greatly increased and she had personally gone close to kill several "shadow figures," the girl would probably have been frozen stiff with fear by now.

But after this, both the girl and Zhou Yun became even more cautious, their movements growing ever more delicate.

"Boom! —Crack crack…"

Suddenly, a tremendous crash erupted from outside the door, followed by the sound of the main door about to be smashed open; the heavy objects piled up to block it began to be shaken and shifted.

Knock after knock, each heavier than the last… no, perhaps it should be called the sound of battering the door.

The metal door was struck again and again with a thunderous clang, as though a raging beast were hammering against it.

The door warped and twisted at a speed visible to the naked eye.

'Hurry! Hurry!'

As the door grew ever more precarious, the two inside moved with increasing urgency. Zhou Xiaoxiao, who had already taken out the rope, hurriedly slung the backpack on—unable to bother with the wide-open zipper, she simply placed it against her chest—and came to her brother's side to help him move the bed, then began tying and tossing the rope.

The two siblings were anxiously handling their escape—but Baichuan?

Baichuan simply sliced through the glass above the window, circled along the outer wall to the corridor outside, where he could clearly see the full appearance of the monster standing before the door.

At this moment, the monster had grown far more powerful than when Baichuan had seen it before.

And its form had grown even more grotesque!

Where it stood had turned entirely into a puddle of yellowish-red, sickening pus—all secreted by the various flesh-buds writhing across its body.

Every time it swung the lump of flesh that was its right arm to slam the door, a spray of blurred flesh and blood would burst out, splattering more blood and pus.

Just then, the battering stopped.

The face of black mist emanating from the monster's body slowly turned around.

It revealed a somewhat numb female face, and the instant it saw Baichuan watching from outside—

"AAAAA—!!"

A piercing, high-frequency shriek rang out from the human face being covered by the black-mist palm.

It sent ring after ring of transparent ripples spreading outward in all directions.

The walls faintly began to tremble, countless specks of dust on the floor hopped ceaselessly, and the glass-like windows could not withstand it for an instant and shattered.

"Humm!!"

Countless black mists surged, flesh-buds pulsed, gathered, and twisted!

In an instant, a terrifying Ghost Claw materialized out of thin air and slammed out, clawing toward Baichuan.

"Ahhh…"

At the same time, from the few floors below that faced the direction of the monster's shriek, several screams also rang out—survivors who could not withstand the power of the high-frequency shriek. Of course, whether they remained survivors after those few screams was another matter.

Watching the Ghost Claw coming at him, Baichuan gathered all his strength. At the critical moment he leapt up and hung himself against the wall, repeatedly using inertia to fling himself outward, then anchoring himself to the wall with his sharp right claws, repeating the same motion as before.

"Boom!"

Another tremendous crash—the Ghost Claw that had missed slammed heavily into the floor from inside the building, cracking the ground with several fissures.

The next instant, the Ghost Claw dissolved into countless withered flesh-buds and black mist that slowly scattered.

Yet the "monster" that had been at the door had, as if by teleportation, appeared at the spot where Baichuan had stood before. A pair of blood-red, resentful eyes swept the area ceaselessly, and then another Ghost Claw lashed out.

Like a giant's withered claw, it kept extending out from within the floor, tearing through the concrete building as though it were tofu, leaving countless fragments of broken stone.

And yet it simply could not hit Baichuan, who seemed as tiny as a flea or a fly.

Even while dodging, Baichuan caught sight of the two siblings, who had already escaped along the rope from the fifth floor down to the ground largely unharmed, and his gaze turned cold as he began to counterattack.

So what if his current cat body made him small and weak?

The enemy was nothing but a "brute" with power but no brains!

Nearly every part of this building's outer wall had long since been climbed over by him.

By now, its structure was already engraved in his mind. Between each climb and fling, he drew out one tremendous Ghost Claw after another from the monster, each strike tearing another enormous hole in that floor of the building.

After a series of claw strikes, one terrifying hole after another slowly appeared all around the fifth floor of the building…

"Not good!"

Zhou Yun, who had fled down to the ground and taken shelter in a relatively safe spot, had been watching Mao Mao on the outer wall with constant worry—and suddenly cried out in alarm.

In an instant, seeing the high-rise growing more damaged and beginning to sway on the verge of collapse, he grabbed his little sister's hand and fled headlong into the distance, no longer bothering to wait for Mao Mao.

Because he had finally seen clearly why his family's Mao Mao hadn't simply escaped down from the building!

Thanks to that "monster" on the building unleashing its Burst, the large number of mindless "human shadows" in the area had also nearly vanished, leaving only two or three scattered stragglers that didn't form a group; and those phantoms had fled the place entirely the instant its Ghost Claw appeared, as though the other were some earth-shattering monster.

Meanwhile, the Zhou siblings, who had only taken a fraction of that sound wave's force on their backs, merely bled from the seven orifices and were in no serious danger.

With the Zhou siblings' departure, the situation atop the building grew ever more perilous!

……

(End of chapter)